


You Were As Flowers

by zelda_zee



Category: Lost
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-07
Updated: 2015-02-07
Packaged: 2018-03-10 21:53:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3304757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zelda_zee/pseuds/zelda_zee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Oceanic 6 era.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Were As Flowers

Sun searches for months. There are only rumors, hearsay, intimations that someone heard that someone saw a man who resembled Sayid a week or a month ago – or the day before yesterday – in Prague… Dubai… Kuala Lumpur. She should be able to find him – she has the resources, she’s hired investigators – but it would seem that he is just as unreachable as he would have been if they'd left him behind on the island.

But they hadn’t left him behind. Sayid had been there with them – with her – throughout. He’d stayed near her when everyone else – Jack, Kate, Hurley, Desmond – had given her space, afraid of the rawness of her grief. He hadn’t tried to speak to her about it, hadn’t urged her to let it all out or assured her that everything would be all right. Nothing was all right, nor would it ever be again, and they both knew that.

Looking back, she can’t recall uttering a word during the entire week they spent on the _Searcher_. She supposes she must have, but it's all a blur, just days of misery and regret and pain and she counts it a blessing that she remembers very little of it.

What she does remember, she’s tried to forget. Jack’s fixation on telling this lie that has come to define her life – how she hated him then - _hated_ him so fiercely that it frightened her. Even now, she can’t forgive him for refusing to go back for Jin; for making her pretend those months on the island that returned her husband to her had never happened; for making her deny the truth of how he died.

She remembers Desmond and Penny, the joy of their reunion – remembers hating them too – their happiness like a knife slicing deep into her guts. She could not even bear to look at them, at the way they glowed with joy. She knew they sensed it, and tried to keep their distance from her, an act of consideration. She could not be happy for them, could not take comfort that they had found love again just when she had lost it forever.

She doesn’t remember Kate or Hurley or Frank from that week at all. Not even Aaron, though she supposes she must have helped Kate care for him. She's a woman, after all. It’s not as if Kate would have expected any of the men to look after a baby.

She remembers Sayid though, there at her side, a gentle hand at her elbow, steadying her when she didn’t even realize she was unsteady. She remembers him sitting beside her at meals, silent while the rest of them talked, urging her to eat just a little something, reminding her that she needed to stay strong. She remembers him walking her back to her cabin after supper, helping her to lay down on the bed, tucking her in as if she was a child. She had been about as helpless as a child at that point. She wonders who would have looked after her if Sayid had not been there. Kate was busy with Aaron, Desmond and Penny with each other, Frank she barely knew. Jack might have tried, but she wouldn’t have wanted him anywhere near her. Perhaps Hurley, if he’d had the nerve to deal with her.

She hadn’t wondered then why Sayid was so attentive, how he seemed to know when she needed to be alone and when his quiet presence would be welcome. Now she thinks she understands. She thinks it was because he knew what it was to lose someone, even if it hadn’t been the same with Shannon. Not like Jin. Jin was her husband, the father of her child. Losing someone you’d known only a few weeks could not compare, and yet… Sayid felt things deeply, Sun has always known that. Looking back on it from the perspective of three years’ time, she can see that only someone who was intimately acquainted with grief would have intuitively known what to do.

She has heard, of course, about Nadia’s death. Even as she sheds tears for Sayid, for once again losing a woman he loved, she sheds tears for herself as well. She doesn’t cry for Jin anymore, but she can cry for Nadia. For Sayid.

She tries to find him, to offer her condolences. She knows it would be meaningless, but after what he had done for her, she had to try. But no one has heard from him, no one knows where he was. Sayid Jarrah might as well have died on the day his wife did, for all that is left of him to be found.

They are all lost. All of them, in one way or another. But only Sayid has truly vanished.

~

Later, for different reasons, she tries again, a more focused, coordinated effort.

With the passing of time she begins to think more clearly. The haze of shock and grief clears from her mind, leaving behind the cold, clear tonic of pure anger, and the need for revenge. For justice. Grief has made her strong – stronger than she was.

There was a woman once, uncertain and cowed, who crash-landed on an uncharted island. That woman is not her. That woman died there, along with her husband.

She knows intuitively that Sayid will see her clearly. Of all of them, it is he who will understand this new-forged person she has become.

Months pass and she does not find him. She thinks of Penny, searching for Desmond for years. She does not love Sayid, but still, she searches. Determination has never depended on love for her.

In the end, it is he who finds her.

~

She has a top-of-the-line security system, but he somehow bypasses it. She’s only been away for a few minutes, checking to see that Ji Yeon is sleeping soundly, but when she returns to the living room, there he is, standing against the wall to the side of the windows, his hands clasped in front of him. It’s a strange position, as if he’s waiting in line at the bank or the post office, rather than just having broken into her home. She starts, drops the book she’s carrying, her hand going to her mouth. He raises his finger to his lips, warning her. Her mother is asleep at the other end of the hall, the nanny as well.

She feels her heart beating hard. It’s the shock of seeing him again, where and when she had not expected to. She steadies her breathing, using the time it takes to regain her equilibrium to study him. He seems to understand and waits patiently for her to speak first.

He is so _different_. That is the first thing that goes through her mind. So very different from how he was on the island. He is a wearing a stylishly cut suit and polished, squared-toed boots and his clothes are very expensive, she can tell even from across the room. His hair is straightened, which strikes her as the oddest thing. Nonetheless, it’s very beautiful – _he’s_ very beautiful. She studies him more critically – the eyes, the mouth, the nose are the same, and yet… this is not the man she knew.

He’s standing so still, like an animal in the wild that freezes in an effort to avoid detection, attempting to blend into its surroundings. As if Sayid could ever blend in.

She approaches him until she is standing only a couple of feet away. “Sayid,” she says, just to say his name. His lip twitches, the first hint of an expression she has seen on his face.

“Sun,” he replies, in a tone gentle inquiry.

She takes a breath. She’s still a bit off-balance. She reaches out and touches his arm. She can’t feel anything other than the fine wool of his jacket. Her mind flashes back to the man as he looked on the island, with his wild, curling hair and his warm, brown skin exposed to the sun. He was so certain, so active despite that inner calm. On the island he was a man to be trusted – perhaps the man she was most comfortable trusting after Jin. Now, she is not so sure.

Whatever has changed, he is still Sayid, she tells herself. She knows him, knows what lies beneath this strange façade. He is still the man who time and again put his life on the line for them without hesitation, the man who helped her survive that first terrible week after the island, the man her husband had trusted.

“I am glad to see you, Sayid,” Sun says. “I have been looking for you for a long time.”

“I know,” he replies. “I apologize for not getting in touch sooner. And for the –” he smiles so faintly that she almost misses it, “unconventional nature of my visit.”

His voice strikes her as wrong somehow. She listens closely, trying to place what is different. There's something false about it, but not as if he's telling a lie. It's as if it is his voice itself that is the lie.

“It is all right, Sayid,” she assures him. “Although it would appear that I need to install a new security system.”

“Your security system is excellent.” He shrugs. “But I am better.”

“I was going to make a pot of tea,” she says, as if Sayid is here in the course of a normal evening, just a friend dropping in to say hello. She knows this is not the case, but she needs some semblance of normalcy. Everything – his sudden appearance after she’d searched for so long, the way he looks and acts – it’s all so strange. “Would you like some?”

“Yes, please. That would be very nice.” Apparently, Sayid could use a dose of normalcy as well.

She puts the kettle on. When she returns to the living room, he is still where she left him, standing against the wall. She pulls the curtains, shutting out the view of downtown Seoul.

“Would you like to see Ji Yeon?” she asks. He has never seen her child.

“I would,” Sayid says. “Very much.”

Ji Yeon is asleep, her dark hair strewn across the pillow. Sayid stands beside the bed and his expression softens. When he leans forward to look more closely his jacket gapes open and Sun can see his gun in its shoulder holster. Maybe she should be alarmed to have an armed man so close to her child. Maybe some other woman would be.

He meets her eyes and she smiles. “She has his cheekbones,” Sayid says. “And I think she has your mouth.”

“She has Jin’s eyes as well,” Sun tells him. “If she was awake, you could see.”

“She is very beautiful.” He’s looking at Ji Yeon again, the softness gone from his eyes. Now he looks only regretful. “It almost seems like it was worth it, looking at her.”

“No,” Sun shakes her head. “It’s not like that. Jin didn’t die so she could live. We didn’t leave them behind and tell all those lies in return for her life, or Aaron’s or anyone’s. It’s not that simple, Sayid.”

“You are right.” He straightens up and looks at her very directly. “It is not that simple.”

The kettle whistles and Sun hurries to the kitchen, before it wakes anyone. Sayid follows her.

“Where have you been?” she asks as she spoons tea into the pot. “You are very good at not being found.”

“Are you going to try to tell me that you don’t know?” She glances at him, trying to gauge his meaning, but he’s become very difficult for her to read. She tries once again to reconcile this man standing in her kitchen with the one she knew on the island, and she finds that she cannot.

“What I know are rumors, Sayid. My investigators only found news of you second- and third-hand. It was as if you had become a ghost. No one has heard from you.” She waits, but he says nothing, his face expressionless. For some reason, it infuriates her. “Do you even know that Jack has become a drug addict? Do you know that he tried to kill himself? That Kate will not even talk to him? Do you know that Hurley is institutionalized? You disappeared off the face of the earth after Nadia died. Did you ever think about us? That you might have kept in contact? That we might need you?”

Sayid meets her eyes then looks away. She pours the tea as the silence lengthens. He takes the cup from her and stares into it, as if he expects the answers to her questions to appear there.

“I did not think of you. That is, I tried not to. And when I did, it was already too late.” She makes a sound, a frustrated exhalation. “I could have done nothing, in any case. For any of you.”

Sun takes a deep breath. She needs to steer the conversation toward what it is she wants from him. She has searched fruitlessly for months and now he is here. She may not get another chance. “Come,” she says. “Why don’t we go into in the living room?”

Sayid sits on the sofa and she takes a seat beside him. “What my investigators found,” she says, once they settle in, “was a pattern that became clear when we looked carefully. I researched the victims, the ones we could locate. I am sure there are others who will never be found.” Sayid is watching her very intently. He doesn’t betray himself, not with a twitch or a blink. She wonders how far he will go to protect himself, who he is willing to kill to ensure that his secrets remain undiscovered. “They were all tied in one way or another to Charles Widmore.” She exhales slowly, then takes a breath and says, “That is why I have been searching for you, Sayid. I need your help.”

Sayid is still, just the shifting of his eyes showing that he is thinking. “You should not have searched for me, Sun,” he says. “You should not know any of that. And it is no use. In what way could I possibly help you?”

“There is a way to bring down Widmore,” she says, leaning toward him. “But I need money.”

“You have the settlement,” Sayid points out.

“But the settlement is not enough to buy a majority share of my father’s company, Sayid.”

Sayid looks at her, and still his face is an impassive mask. “And why would you want to do that?”

“Because I know how to get to Widmore,” she states, more emphatically this time. “You are no closer now than you were before, because you are going about it in the wrong way. I can ruin him and save the island – and those we left there – but I need money.”

“There is my settlement,” Sayid says. “If you need it, it is yours.”

“I don’t want your settlement,” she says, trying to keep the annoyance out of her voice. “Our settlements combined do not even get close. What I need is Ben, and you can put me in touch with him.”

“Whatever would give you that idea?” Sayid’s face wears an expression of polite puzzlement. She wants to slap him, but she keeps her voice calm.

“Please do not attempt to play games with me, Sayid. It is beneath you.”

She watches him digest this for a moment, then he nods. “Very well.” He turns his head to look at her out of the corner of his eye. “I can try to get a message to Ben. He may or may not call you. If I were you, I would hope that he does not.”

“Do you remember the day Jin died?” she asks.

“Of course I do,” he says and she sees it for an instant, a flicker of sadness in his eyes.

“I never thanked you for how you took care of me after that,” she says. It’s harder than she would have expected, to thank him. “On Penny’s boat – you were very kind to me then.”

“We were all worried about you –” Sayid begins, but she interrupts him.

“No, they were not. Not really. They had other things on their minds. You were the one who looked after me, Sayid.”

Sayid’s hands are clasped around his teacup. She realizes he has been holding it throughout their conversation and it is still full. He bows his head and his eyes close for a moment and he looks like he is praying. She knows that he feels it too , the weight of those days, how it never lessens, how it takes up so much space in their lives.

When he responds, he speaks carefully, as if trying out each word in his mouth before he lets it go. “It was no hardship, Sun. It was the least I could do.”

“Why did you come to see me?” she asks. “Why now, after all this time?”

“Maybe I just wanted to see a friendly face.” He smiles at her, but it doesn’t reach his eyes.

She kisses him when he stands up to leave. It isn’t passion that prompts her, it’s panic, the panic of watching him walk out of the door and not knowing if she will ever see him again. He is her only true connection to the island and to what happened there. Somehow, with him here, she feels closer to Jin. Maybe she should want to forget it all, but she does not. Unlike the rest of them, she wants to remember.

Sayid does not kiss her back. He stands unmoving as she slides a hand into his hair and tilts his head, slanting her lips against his. His lips are smooth and warm and his breath smells faintly of coffee. After a moment, as he continues to just stand there, she draws back. She’s not prepared for the sadness she sees in his eyes.

“Please don’t,” is all he says. Somehow she knows by his tone that it isn’t that he doesn’t want her to.

“Why not?” she asks. “What do we have to lose?”

He takes her hands in his, both of them, wraps his around them. They are strong and callused. She has not had this much contact with a man since her husband died.

“Women who get too close to me have a habit of getting killed,” Sayid says. He stares at their hands.

“You should not blame yourself,” she says. “Shannon’s death was not your fault. Neither was Nadia’s”

Sayid shakes his head vehemently. “They died because of me. And they are not the only ones.” He releases her hands and steps back. “It is better this way.”

She reaches out and cradles his cheek. His beard is soft against her palm. She doesn’t say anything, even when he turns away, picks up his jacket and walks out the door.

~

The next morning her phone rings. ‘Blocked call,’ the i.d. reads.

“Hello, Sun,” says a familiar voice, but one she has not heard in a long while. “This is Ben Linus. Sayid says you have a proposal for me.”

~

It is impossible to gain Charles Widmore’s trust. Sun does not even try. It is enough that he believes her when she says she blames Ben for her husband’s death. It is easy to make it believable, because it is true.

She needs something that Widmore has. He needs Paik’s continued collusion in his plans for the island. Paik Industries holds the schematics of the vessel that can take them back, but Widmore has the ship itself and she needs that ship.

In the end, getting it is not as difficult as she had foreseen.

When Widmore falls, it's like a row of dominoes, one tipping into the next. The devastation is impressive, leaving his people scrambling, corporations and conspiracies that circle the globe laid bare to the sight of stunned Interpol agents.

In the months and years of investigations that follow, they find no mention of Oceanic 815, no link to failed Utopian experiments or islands with electromagnetic anomalies and the promise of miraculous healing properties, no mention of Benjamin Linus or Desmond Hume, and the only connection there is to Sun-Hwa Kwon is that before her disappearance she was managing director of Paik Industries, a company with legitimate business ties to the Widmore Corporation.

~

Sun thinks that she will not see Sayid again, that he has faded back into the invisibility from which he emerged. She thinks maybe that would be for the best. He is so altered from the man she knew. On the island Sayid was so vital, so full of life. The man who visited her was just a husk, a very pretty empty shell.

She is not sure how this happened to him. Was it all the fault of Nadia’s death, or Ben's manipulations? Was it because of the lie? Because they were never supposed to leave? She is strong enough to live with the lie, with the loss of her husband. Perhaps Sayid is not that strong. He had seemed like the most solid person, like nothing could topple him, but maybe that was only illusion.

Her investigators had turned up the details of his life before the island. They were not a surprise to her. She recalled the talk, after what happened to Sawyer early on. At some point Jack had told her that he used to torture people, before, when he was in the Republican Guard. It was a hard thing to reconcile to the man she knew who, she would swear, did not have the soul of a torturer. But then, she would have sworn he did not have the soul of an assassin either.

But Sayid does come again, months later. This time she comes home from a business dinner to find him sitting on her sofa, a pot of tea already made, two cups waiting for them.

She had put in a new security system since the last time. Apparently, he is better than that one too.

He seems much the same, very still, very quiet. She cannot imagine him laughing or talking with friends. She thinks that he must not have friends, or family. They all have someone – Jack has his mother, Kate has Aaron, Hurley has his parents, she has Ji Yeon and her mother. Sayid has no one.

“Hello, Sun,” he says, in that soft voice she remembers. Not his voice from before. On the island his voice was forceful and clipped and assertive. And freer. She can remember him shouting on occasion and laughing. She cannot imagine the man sitting in her living room doing either.

“Hello, Sayid,” she says. “I did not know if I would see you again.” She drops her purse on the armchair, takes off her coat, toes off her shoes. She comes to sit beside him as he pours her a cup of tea.

“I always intended to return,” he says. “When it was time.”

She pauses, the cup midway to her lips. “Time?”

“Yes. When it was time to go.”

She feels her heart beat hard, once. Then she calms herself and takes a sip of tea.

“Now?”

“Everything is in place. There is no reason to delay. So, yes, now. As soon as you can put your affairs in order.”

“Everything is in order, Sayid. I have known this day was coming for a long time.”

He sighs and looks down, staring at his hands, clasped together.

“I am sorry, Sun. You could have had a life here, afterward. Of all of us, I think you could have been happy.”

She smiles a little at that. Perhaps he is right, but it hardly matters. Happiness, a life afterward… they are abstract concepts to her.

“No, Sayid,” she says. “You are mistaken in that.”

He looks at her, his large, dark eyes full of regret. “I will be in touch,” he says. “Be ready for my call.”

He stops at the door and turns. "Widmore is dead," he says.

She looks at him for a long moment. They both know that she had left Widmore in no position to do further harm. "That was not necessary, Sayid."

"Yes," he says. "It was."

~

The first night on the ship she knocks on his door and tries to pretend that her heart is not beating too fast. The metal deck is cold beneath her bare feet and she curls her toes in. She should have worn shoes.

When he opens the door surprise registers on his face for just a second and then he pulls it open wider to let her in. He closes the door and faces her.

“It does not matter anymore, does it?” When his forehead creases in incomprehension she forges ahead. “We won’t be going back.” She moves forward until she is standing very close to him. “So it doesn’t matter anymore.”

“It still matters,” he says.

Her jaw sets. He will not refuse her this, not when she knows he wants it as much as she does.

“No,” she says firmly. “It does not.”

She kisses him and like last time, he stands still, stiff and unresponsive. But this time she doesn’t stop. She presses her body to his and wraps her arms around him and holds him tightly and eventually, by degrees, he yields, until with a low, shuddering sigh his hand goes to the back of her head and he pulls her close and he’s kissing her. She lets it wash over her, the warmth, the closeness, the flicker of desire that flares hot when he licks into her mouth. It’s been almost four years and there hasn’t been anyone else she’s wanted, only him, and maybe that’s less because of who he is than because of what he knows about her. Underneath the lust that’s pumping thickly through her blood is a tightness in her chest that feels too much like grief. She isn’t deluded enough to think that Jin would approve of this, but maybe he would at least understand. Maybe he could forgive her this, with this man.

He stands and lets her undress him. She peels off his clothing piece by piece. His body is marred by scars, too many of them. He is still beautiful as he stands before her, lithe and brown, his dusky cock rearing up out of a patch of thick, black curls. She strips hurriedly, then touches him, running her fingers over his chest and stomach, pushing him gently back toward the bed.

Sayid is a considerate lover, though he is more passive than she would have predicted. He lets her take the lead in everything, almost as if he is pretending to himself that if he does not take an active role then he is not really there. She wonders if this is his way of protecting her, if he thinks this will somehow keep her from the fate that befell the women in his past.

It is not until he is inside her and she looks down at him, lost in the sensation of being filled again and the slippery touch of her own hand, that she sees the bullet scar on his chest. Her eyes meet his and she pauses, about to ask him about it, but his hands grip her hips and shove her down hard onto his cock as he thrusts up and she forgets about everything. She comes, her gasps echoing in the small chamber. It’s almost too much, a sharp, pulsing ecstasy that makes her want to cry. As it ebbs she collapses over him and he rolls her to the side. She thinks that he will enter her like this, that he’ll want to come inside her, but instead he kisses her and his fingers slide into her instead. She’s wet and swollen and it takes barely a brush to her clit before she’s shuddering and panting again. He’s patient, letting it build slowly, until she’s helpless, clinging to him, her hips hitching insistently, moans spilling out between kisses.

“I want you inside me. Please,” she begs, trying to pull him over on top of her. She’s speaking Korean, she realizes, but it doesn’t seem to matter, he knows what she wants. She hisses as he pushes inside again, arching against him. He’s been almost silent the whole time but he makes a noise now, a choked groan that she knows he’d hold back if he could. She wraps her legs around him and kisses him fiercely. She takes him, and if he won’t give himself willingly she’ll make him give it up whether he wants to or not. She rocks up and he moves to meet her and it’s perfect, _perfect_. She reaches up and flattens her palms against the wall so she can push back and he gasps when she does. The sound sends a shock of desire through her. She wants his pleasure, she won’t let him deny her this. They move together, sweat-slick skin, sliding and writhing, building heat and friction. He leans up on a hand and looks down at her. His hair falls around his face, a dark curtain that shuts them off in their own little world where there is only each other. She holds his eyes even as he moves faster, harder. A sob is forced out of her and she realizes her eyes are wet. He makes a raw, whimpering sound, and she knows he feels it too, the pain and pleasure combined, the agony of connection after so much time alone. She shuts her eyes against it and lets her body take over.

Her muscles quiver and tense and she reaches a hand between her legs to feel his cock sliding into her, in and out, and he feels so hot, so alive. He makes a noise, something drawn-out and guttural and animal, his hips stutter and twist and buck and he clasps her to him so tightly that she feels his heart pounding against hers. She touches herself just once and her orgasm blooms out from her core, flowing into every cell, burning through the pain and leaving only pleasure behind.

Afterward, they lie silently side by side. Her thoughts are floating and diffuse. She doesn’t want to return to her small stateroom where her child sleeps in a cot against the wall. She doesn’t want to have to speak to the man beside her in the bed. What is there to say? They just said everything they possibly could.

Their breathing synchronizes, slow and deep, as the sweat dries on their skin. She thinks about how they should have used a condom and then she remembers that those kinds of concerns are in the past for them.

Sayid rolls to face her. She looks at him and he looks back. It’s a strange, honest moment, neither of them trying, for once, to hide anything.

“We will not be returning,” Sun says. Saying it out loud makes it real. She needs to make it real.

“No,” he says softly. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Do you think it was wrong of me to come? To bring Ji Yeon with me?” Her fingers trace over the scar on his chest. He takes her hand in his and draws it away. His hand has killed so many people, she thinks. She wonders why that doesn’t matter to her.

“You had to come,” he says. He brings her fingertips to his lips. “You had to bring her. It was never a question of right or wrong.”

She turns her back to him and he spoons up behind her, his crotch pressing soft and damp to her behind. She sighs. It’s a comfort, to be held like this, a comfort she hasn’t had for a long time.

“What do you think we will find there?” she asks, but he does not answer, he just tightens his arms around her and presses his face to the back of her neck.

She knows that Sayid expects to find his death there. She thinks maybe he hopes for that. She will not let it happen, if it is in her power to prevent it.

She doesn’t know what she expects to find. A small part of her cannot help but hope to find Jin there, even though she knows it is not possible. As long as Ji Yeon survives, she thinks. That is what is important.

Time passes slowly. At night, Sayid comes to her room, slips into bed with her and they make love, silently so as not to wake Ji Yeon. Afterward, she falls asleep with his arms around her. She has not slept so well in years and she doesn’t have to ask to know it is the same for him. Ji Yeon does not seem to find it strange to wake up and find Sayid in the room with them in the mornings. She just wants to go up on deck, to play with Aaron.

It is the children who bring the adults together. They sit on the deck, backs against the railing, and watch them chase each other around and around, laughing and shouting. It makes everything easier, just a little.

Jack is careful with her at first, until she tells him that she no longer blames him for anything. She isn't sure when that changed, but it has.

Sun is not sure if the others know she and Sayid are sharing a cabin. Now that the planning is done, now that there is nothing to do but wait until their ship takes them where it is meant to go, they speak only in generalities, as if one wrong word will cause their fragile accord to shatter. Sun knows it for what it is, the cooperative effort of broken and weary people to last just as long as they must. They are all determined to play their parts for as long as they can.

Only Ben does not interact. He stands apart and looks out to sea. He is, Sun thinks, the only one of them who seems sure about this, but then he always seemed so sure of everything.

There is no outcry when the island is sighted. Word passes from one person to the next and they all gather at the bow. They stand silently, watching it take shape in the distance. Even the children are quiet, sobered by the adults’ somber mood. It feels like bearing witness to some tragedy, even though the tragedy played out years ago.

Sayid stands at her side, his shoulder brushing hers with the rocking of the ship. She wonders if he is afraid. She wonders if any of them are. None of them are giving anything away. She holds Ji Yeon’s hand tightly, too tightly. She consciously makes herself loosen her grip, looking down at the top of her daughter’s head. Ji Yeon is staring straight ahead like the rest of them, her attention focused on the island in front of them, no childish questions on her lips.

Sayid slips his hand into hers and gives it a squeeze and she realizes she’s been holding her breath. She inhales and with the pure, clean sea air comes the odor of jungle and verdant earth, the heady scent of vegetation. It’s so familiar. She is horrified at how much it feels like coming home.

This is the end of everything, she thinks and she wonders why the thought brings with it no pain, why she cannot feel sorrow. It should feel like the end, but instead she feels a surge of excitement inside her.

She looks at Sayid and finds him watching her. When he smiles she cannot help but smile back at him.


End file.
